


as long as i'm breathing (i'm not leaving)

by astralscrivener



Series: vld fic requests [12]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Injury, Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Established Keith/Lance (Voltron), Healer Lance (Voltron), Knight Keith (Voltron), Knight Lance (Voltron), Knight Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Magic-Users, Prince Adam (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22072012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: Magic responded to magic it knew and trusted; it was why so many healing practices allowed loved ones to be right there in the fray, and why it was recommended that if there was a Healer or Blood-bender someone knew, they saw them for their illnesses and injuries.Lance agreed with it, even if it was emotionally taxing at times.Shiro had just been trying to pass on his mantle to Keith; they didn't ask to be attacked, and Lance didn't ask to be so self-sacrificial.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: vld fic requests [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/891546
Comments: 26
Kudos: 308





	as long as i'm breathing (i'm not leaving)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thespacenico](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/gifts).



> _title taken from lyrics from PROMISE ME by WRITTEN BY WOLVES_
> 
> hey gang!! back at it again in the same fantasy universe as fire up (let go), day 27 of klance au month, and take a deep breath (i'm your oxygen), all of which i don't feel like typing out the html codes to link but all of which can be found on my ao3 page just a click away :^)
> 
> this time it features the gang with different powers, and was commissioned by the lovely [darcy thespacenico](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/works) for her dear friend [anna](https://twitter.com/misquidinq)!! 
> 
> edited as always by resident beta (also known as Poor Soul Who Puts Up With Eileen's Bullshit She Writes In A Sleep-Deprived Haze In The Middle Of The Night) [nicole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeneevee/works) :^D
> 
> i hope y'all enjoy this one!! darcy, thank u for commissioning me, i hope u and anna enjoy!!! <3
> 
> **trigger warnings for blood and injury (nothing super graphic), the usual swearing, characters passing out, talk of death...i think i've covered my bases**

Keith hadn’t planned on spending his one day off in the woods.

He’d planned to spend most of the day just lurking around the Amber Star, the large palace in the center of Garrina—the same palace where he worked every day, alongside Shiro, alongside Lance. 

Lance didn’t have the day off, and Keith had planned on hanging out with him in the infirmary, even if he had to fake an injury to get more than five uninterrupted minutes of face-to-face conversation.

But then Shiro had intercepted him this morning, also with nothing to do on his own day off. Instead of sacrificing his downtime by being on-duty as Prince Adam’s personal guard anyway, he’d asked Keith to come to the woods with him. Something about needing to talk to him. Something about a tradition. As far as their family went, Keith couldn’t recall any traditions where they went into the woods together.

_Knightly tradition, then,_ he’d concluded, and then wracked his brain as he tried to think of anything he might’ve learned in his several years as a Knight of the Amber Star where knights went off into the woods together. 

He came up with nothing. Either he had slept through a class, skipped it, or just plain didn’t remember. That, or this had never been imparted to him.

Several hours later, and here they were.

Keith had thought about playing up his bitterness at having his day off cut short, thought about pestering Shiro the whole way, but Shiro seemed quiet. Quieter than usual, anyway—not the sort of alert, on-guard, tense quiet that usually accompanied his presence, the quiet Keith had inherited and accidentally cranked up to eleven, but something else. Something more nervous.

“You alright, Shiro?” Keith finally asked, as they walked along a dirt path that cut its way through the woods, near a village bordering Garrina’s main city.

Shiro’s hand flexed, fingers drumming over the pommel of the sword he carried at his side.

“Yeah,” he answered in an exhale a moment later, a _yeah_ that seemed to take some contemplation. His teeth worried at his lower lip and brow furrowed, like he meant to say more but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

The look wasn’t an unfamiliar one. 

Shiro wore that look every time he had to break bad news to the rest of the knights under his command, like if they had lost one to injuries sustained in battle, or they were going to fight some force that outmatched them, or someone was being let go for one reason or another. He wore that look every time he had to reprimand Keith, and wore it the time Keith was young, and Shiro was brand-new to the Knights, and he had to explain why they were moving into the palace, and why he wouldn’t see him quite as often.

“Keith,” Shiro started with a wince, finally halting and turning toward him, “you know how much I love Adam, right?”

“Yeah?” Keith slowed to a stop next to him, arms crossing tightly over his chest, shoulders bunching.

It wasn’t much of a secret, at least among the Knights of the Amber Star, that most of Shiro’s devotion to Adam stemmed from more than just a sense of duty.

“Well…”

Keith watched him carefully, as he finally let go of his sword, lifted his left hand and peeled his bulky leather glove off, and—there it was.

A ring, crusted with diamonds and amber. One of the royal family’s most precious rings. Right there on Shiro’s ring finger.

Keith didn’t gasp, though his mouth fell open.

The sight of it shouldn’t have shocked him as much as it did. Betting pools ran rampant among Shiro’s subordinates over when the day would come, when he and Adam would be engaged, not a soul daring to bet on a day when Adam would end up betrothed to another royal from another kingdom. Their love was too powerful, the knights jested.

“I…congratulations,” Keith finally managed, tearing his eyes from the ring and raising them to Shiro’s face, flushed and wearing a fond smile. Keith’s shoulders started relaxing, arms loosening—maybe this wasn’t the sort of talk he’d anticipated. Maybe this would just be…Keith didn’t know, something else. Maybe wedding talk. Maybe just Shiro looking to gush about his new fiancé. “I’m happy for you two.”

He was, truly.

They’d spent years flirting, skirting around the king and queen, around diplomats and royals from other countries, around guards and palace staff and the public—anyone and everyone. They opened up only to a select few, to those most trusted, but even then kept most of their relationship to themselves. But if Shiro now wore one of the family rings…

“So the king and queen know?” Keith asked.

“Yeah.” Something flickered, faded in Shiro’s expression. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Is everything alright?”

Shiro hesitated. Sighed. “Yes and no.”

His eyes drifted down to the sword he carried at his side, to the pommel, to the jewel-encrusted hilt—ambers, dozens of them. They added nothing special to the sword—no magic, nothing extraordinarily lethal. They existed purely for the aesthetic, purely to denote rank, for only Garrina’s Captain of the Guard was allowed to carry it.

Shiro’s mouth sank into a frown, deepening the longer he looked at it.

“The king and queen are allowing me to marry Adam under a certain set of conditions,” he said at last, drawing the sword from its sheath, gleaming silver blade catching the dappled light filtering through the leaves of the tree branches winding skyward above them. “Wedding arrangements won’t be made until the conditions are met. They’ve said it’s nothing against me—it’s tradition, or something like that.”

He turned the sword over. Studied the hilt his hands had wrapped around thousands of times.

“Conditions?” Keith pressed, like at any moment Shiro might lose his line of thought.

Shiro squeezed the hilt. Kept his eyes down.

“Through my union with Adam, I will be considered royalty in the eyes of the law. Both our law, and the law of other kingdoms, ally and enemy alike. I’ll have duties to attend to outside of my knightly duties—a lot of them. Too many to have in addition to being a knight. That, and the king and queen are worried that out on the battlefield, I’ll have an even bigger target on my back than before if I’m not only the Captain, but also a prince—husband of the heir to the throne. They think it’s a vulnerability our enemies would seek to exploit, and I don’t think they’re wrong.”

Keith opened his mouth to talk, eyes narrowing and fists clenching, a protest at the tip of his tongue. Shiro raised a hand, though, and his head followed suit as he settled a grave look upon Keith.

“I’ll be allowed to sit in on meetings, strategize and advise all I want, but they don’t want me on the battlefield. …They want me to find a successor, Keith, and give up my position as Captain of the Guard.”

From the minute Shiro had started his explanation, Keith had gotten the sense this was coming. It was why he wasn’t quite stunned into silence, stunned into stuttering; he was stuttering, rather, because he knew what was coming next, could see it in the way Shiro’s hand twitched forward with the sword. He was trying and failing to come up with a counterargument before Shiro could even present his argument.

“No,” he settled on, short and to the point. “You’re—you’re the best Captain we’ve had in years, you know all of us and—and your strategies—”

Everybody had a power they were born with. Lance could heal, Keith could bend blood. Other soldiers controlled water and fire, warped the weather at will, could track down any person or object through a magical connection, could read minds, could control them. Shiro’s power fit his position perfectly: telepathy. He could issue a command to an entire legion without uttering a word. In countless battles, it had given them an edge, an upper hand that had allowed them to come out victorious.

“—your _power_ ,” Keith said. “The king and queen _have to understand_ how big of an asset that is to our army—”

“They do,” Shiro said, settling a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and letting the tip of the blade thunk into the grass. “But the liability presented by a crown on my head outweighs the benefit of my power. And my power isn’t the key to success. Not by a longshot. The key to success lies in the strength of the soldiers, not in the commands of the Captain.”

“Bullshit.” Keith wrenched out from underneath Shiro’s hand. “Send a bunch of soldiers out without someone to direct them, and half of them are coming home in caskets.”

“Keith—”

“A leader’s just as important as the soldiers, don’t even try that selfless bullshit. You know I’m right.”

Keith stared Shiro down. Unlike what he expected— _wanted_ —Shiro kept his composure, expression…blank, almost. Maybe thoughtful. Almost _amused_ , in a certain sense. Maybe it was the quirk of his mouth, inching upward to one side.

“Fine,” Shiro said, crossing his arms at Keith and staring him down right back, “I acknowledge that you’re right, and that a leader _is_ important. And seeing as you’re so passionate about the subject, I guess the second part of what I needed to say to you will be even easier.”

“No.”

“I haven’t even told you what I need to tell you.”

“I’m not stepping up in your place.” 

“Keith, please hear me out.”

“No.”

“Keith—”

“You can’t promote me if I quit.”

“You— _what?_ ”

On another day, maybe Keith would offer an explanation. But here was the thing about blood-bending powers: Keith could sense other people nearby. It was nothing like tracking magic, where he could get a bead on a specific person or object or what have you. Instead, it was just a feeling, a sort of sixth sense for when another person was nearby, heightened considerably. He couldn’t get a read on emotions, and could only identify a person by blood after coming into contact with them enough times. People like Shiro, Lance, his fellow soldiers, the royal family—those were people he could pick out by blood.

This was someone new, and they weren’t alone.

“Keith—”

“Shut up.”

Keith hadn’t brought his sword with him, not on his damn _day off_ , but he still knew better than to wander in the woods unarmed. He reached one hand behind himself, wrapped it around the hilt of the dagger strapped to his lower back, and drew it.

Even miffed, Shiro knew better than to argue, than to assert his authority as older brother and Captain.

_“What’s going on?”_ he used his telepathy to ask, raising his own sword, twirling it as he adjusted his grip, like maybe the sight of the Captain of the Guard’s sword would scare off the people slowly closing in on them.

“We’re being surrounded,” Keith answered, voice low as he swept his eyes around the area.

Sure enough, he could pick out humanoid figures stalking closer to them, making their way furtively—or trying to, at least—through the foliage of bushes and underbrush. The closer they got, the stronger the energy of their blood became.

Keith could pick out magic in blood, and from each of these people, got a read on their powers. Super-strength. Invisibility. Another Blood-bender. Mind-reader. Mind-controller. Illusionist, though he couldn’t figure out if their specialty was focused or unfocused—whether they created illusions concentrated on one person, or illusions meant to fool anyone that could see them. Shapeshifter. Dark-wielder. Teleporter.

Power-amplifier.

“Ten on two, no Druids, but one’s wielding dark magic—an Amplifier,” Keith hissed, and ran down the list of the powers these people possessed.

_“Don’t let them get close. Amplifier, Blood-bender, Invisible, and Controller take first priority,”_ Shiro responded.

All of them were dangerous in their own way, especially outnumbering Keith and Shiro the way they did, but the other six paled in comparison to the four Shiro identified.

The Invisible and the Amplifier didn’t scare Keith much—he would sense the Invisible before they got close enough, and the Amplifier couldn’t hurt them directly. The Blood-bender and the Controller, though…

He’d seen firsthand what they could do, working in tandem. Seen it from his own fellow soldiers, teams who could take over the mind and body of an opposing Captain of the Guard at once, forcing false orders from their mouth. Sometimes, that was all it took—they’d call a retreat, and give time for Garrina’s army to rest, heal, regroup. Other times, the Captain fought back.

Keith’s eyes flicked to Shiro’s prosthetic arm, and he remembered screams. Remembered his brother’s face twisted in agony as he strained against Blood-bender magic. Had Keith not stepped in, he would have lost more than his right arm.

_“If only one of us could cancel powers,”_ Shiro quipped weakly.

Cancelers, like Amplifiers, were wielders of dark magic—neither of them were supposed to have it nor want it, but damn, would a Canceler have been useful at the moment. Keith’s blood-bending was the closest thing to it; the thought gave him a twinge somewhere in his chest, the thought that his powers, though not categorized as dark magic, could come so close when the circumstances called for it.

_Ignore it._

_“How many of them can you take on at once?”_ Shiro asked, voice calming, focusing.

Full control, with minimal concentration? Keith could take on one. Varying degrees of control, with nearly his full concentration? Keith could maybe take on all ten of them, and that was a weak maybe at best.

Although, if they had an Amplifier…

Keith was always more suited to physical combat than wielding his magic, but some situations needed it. Gritting his teeth, he twirled his knife between his fingers, all show.

“Cover me.”

He screwed his eyes shut. In the darkness, it was easier to pick out the threads of his magic, mapping out in its entirety the venous system of each person around him—Shiro at his back, the…soldiers? Rebels? The _whoever_ surrounding them. Each system was a different color for different magic, tinged with the red of Keith’s own. It made it all the easier for Keith to pick out the Invisible first. He raised one hand, flicked his wrist and clenched his fist. The light flickered, writhed, blinked—they dropped like a stone.

Shouts went up around him.

He didn’t kill them, only cut off the blood to their brain long enough for them to fall, but it pissed off their friends enough. Keith drew his power back into himself, pushed it toward Shiro, as the attackers’ own Blood-bender set upon them.

_Should’ve dropped the Amplifier,_ Keith realized a moment too late, as the first of the Blood-bender’s magic slammed into him.

They hadn’t brought the Amplifier to push Keith and Shiro to the brink of exhaustion, and then over that edge into death like they had assumed—they’d brought the Amplifier to bolster themselves.

* * *

Lance’s day started out quiet.

The infirmary had been empty that morning so he spent his early hours milling about with a few of the other Healers and Blood-benders on duty, cleaning out the storeroom and taking stock of medicines. He was scheduled to hit his family’s apothecary that afternoon to refill an order—that was what he did, when he wasn’t sent out to the battlefields with the other knights to heal those injured in combat: he remade the beds. Beautified the bedside tables. Made sure every curtain was drawn back to let sunlight stream in. Kept their supplies in stock.

An hour before he was supposed to depart for his errand, several of the Knights of the Amber Star went running by the open infirmary door, shouting.

Shouting and running among the knights was normal. Typical. But something about this raised Lance’s hackles, and he paused near the door, a few of the other infirmary staff gathering behind him. This shouting—this was far more urgent than usual. Lance had barely set foot out into the hall when another one of the knights very nearly barreled into him.

“Matt, what’s going on?” Lance asked, as the acting Captain braced his hands on Lance’s biceps to steady himself, drawing in a few lungfuls of air.

“Keith and Shiro,” Matt managed between breaths. “I—Shiro—telepathy—woods—prep the infirmary!”

Without offering further explanation, Matt bolted again, down toward the wing of the palace where the royal family spent most of their time.

Lance stared after him for only a heartbeat more before common sense kicked him in the ass.

“You heard him,” Lance said, turning to the other staff members behind him. “Get some beds prepped, water, medicines, bandages, let’s go!”

_You should go with them. You’re a knight, too._ Lance would’ve, if it wasn’t so time-consuming to get his armor on, get back to his quarters and get his weapons. It was better if he stayed here, better if he spared his energy and prepared himself for…whatever healing lay ahead.

Admittedly, though, getting the infirmary prepared for patients was rather easy when the place had been empty all day. It was only a matter of moving supplies from the storerooms to the beds, peeling back covers, and waiting.

Agonizing minute after minute.

It wasn’t long before Lance began pacing up and down the length of the room, between the two rows of sterile beds with plain-colored sheets, between tables adorned with small pots of flowers or stacks of books and magazines, between windows letting in a breeze that fluttered gauzy white curtains.

The breeze did nothing to help Lance, overheating with his surging adrenaline and nonstop pacing. His mind raced as he considered the situation, thought about Keith departing this morning, words still clipped and cool from their fight the night before, but no less full of love. Lance’s heart hurt to think about it.

_Shiro needs me for something. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe this afternoon._ He’d spoken quickly, undoubtedly annoyed—at Lance? At Shiro? Both of them? Something else entirely? Lance hadn’t been able to tell, and couldn’t bring himself to ask as he’d watched Keith shift back and forth on his feet before leaning in, cupping the back of Lance’s neck and kissing him.

_I love you._ He hadn’t said it, but that last, lingering look before he left, the way he held on during their kiss…Lance could feel it. _I’m not mad at you,_ he almost seemed to say. _I’m just worried about you._

Their fight…Lance pressed his nails to the heels of his palms and bit down on his lip, shoulders hunching as it came flooding back to him. He couldn’t remember the finer details of how it had started, but one thing led to another, snowballing out of control…they had been talking, then talking became arguing, and arguing became shouting, all of it over an incident that had happened two days ago, now.

Lance passed out on the job sometimes.

He just—he cared about doing his job well, even if that meant pushing himself as far as he could. And then some. 

Until yesterday, he had done a good job at hiding it from Keith. 

And—yeah, okay, so the fact that he was hiding it in the first place should’ve told him something. But he couldn’t…he couldn’t live feeling like he wasn’t doing enough for his patients. What if he held back, and his holding back had consequences? Like limb loss? Like  _ death? _ If he was  _ right there _ and could  _ heal someone, _ he was going to do it.

So two days ago, he had passed out in the middle of healing a fellow knight’s injury during combat training.

He’d woken up the next morning, _yesterday_ , in the infirmary, with Keith’s face above his, worry lines creasing his forehead and underlining his eyes. He had pushed Lance’s hair back, cupped his cheek, and called him an idiot in a gentle voice. Later on, last night, when Keith had his wits about him again…he’d more or less told Lance not to push himself like that. And Lance argued with him, because really, Keith was one to talk.

It had escalated, and ended in a screaming match with no clear victor.

They’d been in Lance’s room down near the barracks, a room they shared every night, even though Keith had a room of his own. Keith had stormed out, and Lance sat against the door with his knees drawn up to his chest, listening to Keith’s footsteps fade down the hall and the sound of a heavy door slamming.

After an hour of cooling off, an hour where Lance hadn’t moved but instead had nearly fallen asleep on the floor, he heard the door again. Heard Keith’s footsteps as he returned. Listened to him pause just outside the door, hesitating before he finally raised a fist and knocked.

_I’m sorry._

They had an agreement with each other, where they wouldn’t go to sleep angry at each other, wouldn’t set foot on the battlefield without telling the other they loved them, wouldn’t part ways on a bad note, because they never knew when it might’ve been the last time.

Lance’s chest tightened.

_They’re going to be okay. The other knights are plenty capable, and they’re bringing Keith and Shiro to you._

Last night—Keith had come back, they’d exchanged apologies, climbed into bed together, and then once Keith had fallen asleep on Lance’s chest, ear pressed to the space above his heart, Lance had traced his fingers along a scar that marred Keith’s cheek. He’d earned it in the battle right before he’d ascended to Shiro’s second-in-command, a bloody battle that still sometimes came back to Lance in his nightmares, and he’d thought to himself, _This is why I can’t hold back. This is why I won’t._

It could’ve been so much worse than just a scar.

It could’ve been—

“Out of the way, out of the way!”

Clamoring from the hall drew Lance’s attention, and his breath caught in his throat as its source came stumbling through the door: Shiro, gray-green and bloody, carrying an even bloodier Keith and leading an entourage of injured knights through the door. Some of them stayed clustered around their leader; others grunted and groaned as they peeled away, leaned against walls, collapsed in beds.

Lance shot across the room.

He called orders to the other infirmary staff— _check over anyone who ended up in the fight, tend to those who need healing, help me with the Captain and Keith._

“What happened?” he demanded when he reached Shiro, voice scraping hoarsely against the heart that climbed up his throat.

“Faction of assassins,” a voice croaked from behind him—Matt, looking very different than he had not even an hour ago. His plate armor stood out in stark contrast against the leather armor Keith and Shiro donned; where theirs was slashed and tattered, Matt’s was dented and ripped apart with far less care and precision, jagged cuts tearing the metal into practical barbs. “They’re new, and they’re more organized than anything we’ve encountered outside of a formal army.”

While Matt spoke, Shiro carefully passed Keith into Lance’s waiting arms, and then nearly collapsed. Immediately, several other infirmary staff were upon him, while Lance’s eyes flicked between the two brothers. Keith’s injuries were far more obvious, with his leather shredded, red stains spreading out from his stomach, from his arms—even a cut in his leg. Shiro, on the other hand…Lance wasn’t quite sure which blood was his, thought most of it must’ve been Keith’s…

“Blood-bender and a Controller got to him first,” Shiro explained, voice barely a whisper. “All of their weapons were clean, but…” Shiro lifted a trembling hand to his neck. Lance had to squint to see what he was gesturing to—a tiny cut, sliver-like. Thin. A graze by an arrowhead, it looked like—Lance would know.

What Lance didn’t know, not immediately, was the darkness surrounding the cut, spiderwebbing out through Shiro’s veins. Where they should’ve been red, maybe purple or blue, they were dark, black, all down his neck and disappearing below the collar of his shirt, up the side of his face, shooting through his jawline, up near his ear.

“Poison arrow,” Shiro finally managed before he keeled over.

Lance swore. Loudly. As did several others around him.

“Get him in a bed, get him stabilized, we’ve got work to do! Somebody get Matt attention! Flor, Dia, help me with Keith!”

Gods above, Keith was dead weight in his arms. Lance hurried as best he could to the closest bed, covers peeled back and a few other staff members already standing by, waiting for orders. Others set Shiro in the neighboring bed, while the rest attended to the injured knights scattered about the room.

Lance tore his eyes away from them, and instead settled his gaze upon his boyfriend.

With a grimace, he peeled off the leather armor surrounding Keith’s injury, giving way to a fresh round of blood. One of the Healers jumped in, sponging up the blood, while a Blood-bender set their hands upon Keith’s abdomen, along with a towel, both to try and heal him and staunch the blood flow. Then Lance joined them, setting his hands upon the injury, closing his eyes, and reaching out.

With his eyes closed, he could see the threads of his magic, a Healer’s blue-green; he could see the other Healers around the room, and the Blood-benders with their dark red; and then a rainbow of other colors, for all of the soldiers being attended to. Most of them blazed brightly, strengthening with the attention they received.

Keith’s threads remained faded, the last dregs of his power fighting back to protect him.

“C’mon, you stubborn ass,” Lance muttered. “It’s me. Let me in.”

He hadn’t intended for it to work, but then—there. A tiny groan, and Lance could feel Keith’s magic withdraw. Could feel it start working _with_ Lance’s, instead of against it.

“That’s it, baby,” Lance murmured, eyes still closed. “You’re alright. I’m here.”

Magic responded to magic it knew and trusted; it was why so many healing practices allowed loved ones to be right there in the fray, and why it was recommended that if there was a Healer or Blood-bender someone knew, they saw them for their illnesses and injuries.

Lance agreed with it, even if it was emotionally taxing at times.

_Happy thoughts, happy thoughts…_

Happy thoughts were healing thoughts, another tenet Lance swore by. So while he watched the threads of Keith’s magic, of his _life_ flicker and brighten, he thought about the day they got together, strolling through the town center together before ending the day in the nearby meadow. He thought about the look on Keith’s face the day he found and adopted Kosmo, the wolf who used to roam the woods, who now roamed the halls of the Amber Star—unbridled joy, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of it, a hand wrapped around Lance’s wrist, and Lance allowed himself to break his concentration, momentarily, to get a glimpse of Keith’s pale face, eyelashes fluttering as he forced his eyes open.

“ _Lance_.” It left his lips in a pained whimper.

“We’re almost done,” Lance promised him. “Another minute or two. You’re okay—you’re okay, Keith. I’m right here.”

Keith’s grip on his wrist tightened, so hard Lance was fairly certain Keith could’ve drawn blood if he wanted, and then—Keith let go. Grunted and relaxed back into his bed all at once, the fight gone out of him, along with his consciousness.

Lance opened and lifted his eyes to the Blood-bender standing across the bed, who shrugged. “Figured him being unconscious was better.”

They had a point.

So Lance finished off his healing job with another minute or so of concentration. He, the Blood-bender, and the other Healer gave Keith one last check-over, searching for any more injuries they might’ve missed, above and below the surface. They found nothing, and Lance dismissed his aids.

He intended to spend time lingering at Keith’s side, fairly certain the other staff members could handle the rest of the infirmary goings-on, but his eyes wandered to Shiro’s bed, and found the Healers and Blood-benders around him growing frantic. One of them dared to look in Lance’s direction, pleading, almost helpless.

Whatever they were doing wasn’t enough, and it was taking all the energy they had. A Healer’s arms even shook with the effort it took to try and heal Shiro, who looked no better for all their efforts—skin still ashen, breathing running shallow. His only consolation was that the darkness didn’t seem to be spreading, although it withdrew at a painfully slow pace, so slowly it may as well not have been withdrawing at all.

“It’s a strong poison job,” the Blood-bender who’d looked at him said. “Whatever we’re doing…”

“Send for the prince,” Lance ordered, swinging his gaze on one of the other Healers who stood nearby, and then to another one, “You—we should have some kind of cure-all medicine in the back for poisons of this nature. Get it in a needle and get back here _immediately._ ”

“Yes sir!”

With that, Lance turned back to Shiro, shoved his way between another Healer and a Blood-bender. He laid his hands upon Shiro’s chest and screwed his eyes shut, and recoiled almost at once. The powers surrounding him, flowing through Shiro, slammed into him before they flowed together, flowed with his own, but Shiro’s power, this poison…they pushed against him, pushed against the other Healers with a force Lance hadn’t encountered…probably ever.

_Leave it to the Broganes,_ he thought, unamused. _They go out for not even a day._

Unlike the light of Keith’s powers—weak at first, steadily flickering and growing stronger—Shiro’s flashed erratically in response to the efforts of the infirmary staff. The lavender light twisted and writhed inside of gray-green ropes of another power—the poison, it had to be.

Lance’s shoulders tensed, and he reached further out, his magic twining its way around the poison and Shiro’s.

“Alright, Shiro,” Lance muttered, “you’re just like Keith. Stop fighting me, alright? I’m here to help. You know that.”

He wouldn’t have put Lance in charge of the Healing Division of the Knights if he didn’t.

Unlike with Keith, Lance’s words here had little effect. The erratic pulsing of the light calmed down, slightly, but that was it; the gray-green light trapping Shiro’s power still flashed at Lance, taunting. One strand of it even tried to tangle with his own powers, and Lance gritted his teeth. So this was how those assassins liked to play—take one down to take them all down.

“The medicine, sir,” a voice said at his ear.

Lance didn’t open his eyes. “Administer it. _Now_.”

The Healer must’ve obeyed. The gray light pulsed faster, the strands stiffening. Separating slightly from Shiro’s, from Lance’s…but not separating entirely.

Across the room, there was a flurry of movement, the slap of feet echoing off the linoleum floors, off the high, vaulted ceiling and the sunny yellow walls, and then utter silence, followed by footsteps, hurried. Ragged breathing—

“ _What happened to Takashi?_ ”

“Assassins—”

“Poisoner arrow—”

Several explanations from the other knights in the infirmary, grating on Lance’s ears as he tried to heal Shiro, tried to listen for Prince Adam coming up to his bedside, tried to pick out the beige threads of his Mind-reader power as he approached…

His legs wobbled beneath him, arms trembled.

“Your Royal Highness,” he greeted in one breath, head still bent, eyes still shut.

“Lance.” Adam’s returning address also came out in an exhale, all formality lost as he sidled up next to him, probably gripped Shiro’s hand—Lance couldn’t tell and didn’t have the time to dwell on it. He only had time to dwell on healing Shiro.

He ignored the way his neck heated while the rest of him went cold, ignored the sweat rolling down his forehead and the back of his neck, ignored the way he drew in harsh breath after harsh breath the longer he worked, ignored the other Healers and Blood-benders crowding in to join his efforts. So much power surging through him and around him, so much power working with him, working against him.

“It’s okay, Takashi. I’m here, Love.”

_Tune him out. Focus._

This would require more depth. In Lance’s line of sight, Shiro’s threads transformed, spread out until they became layers of his bodily systems: venous, muscular, skeletal, layer after layer. Most of it appeared the healthy lavender it should’ve, but there—in the venous, some seeping into the muscular: gray-green. Attacking it from all sides, dark red and blue-green.

Lance lost track of the time. He just knew this was taking far longer than it should’ve, especially when the bed behind him creaked, and feet hit the floor, and a hand landed on the small of his back, warm and firm.

“If you pass out, I swear to every god in the Pantheon…”

Fond muttering, even if threatening.

Another thread of dark red magic joined the fray.

“Shiro, you’ve got every person in the fucking infirmary here,” Keith said. “If you let _one arrow_ take you out, I’m hunting down a Necromancer to bring you back. You won’t get the luxury of haunting us.”

Maybe Keith’s threats were effective, or maybe it was just the combined efforts of the group around him, or maybe, possibly, both, but Shiro’s power flared, spiked and surged, threads brightening before Lance’s eyes.

“Yeah, c’mon, Old-Timer.” Keith’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s it. Wake up and kick my ass, I know you want to.”

If Keith’s taunting wasn’t working, if his magic wasn’t helping, Lance would’ve berated him for getting out of bed so quickly, still wearing bloodied clothes, after being on death’s doorstep not even half an hour ago.

_Focus. Almost there._

Lance’s head spun. If he opened his eyes, he had no doubt that the world would warp in front of him, no doubt that darkness would crowd in on the edges of his vision. Even with his eyes closed, starbursts of color he knew didn’t belong flared every few seconds like blurry fireworks, blotting out the threads of magic he was supposed to be concentrating on.

“—ance, _Lance_ —”

His ears were ringing.

Hands gripped his arms, a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, the threads in front of him vanished, his eyes snapped open—

—he got one glimpse of the faces around him, saw mouths moving, saw a relieved Adam slumped over Shiro, clasping his hand, saw concerned faces surrounding him, closing in—

He blinked.

Or thought he did.

He couldn’t have, though.

He’d been on his feet before, the world turning to static around him, the infirmary crowded and chaotic. When he opened his eyes now, he found himself lying in an infirmary bed, head pounding and throat dry, and some weight sitting on his chest.

He peered down, and a blob of dark hair greeted him.

“You passed out again.”

Before Lance could say anything, Keith sat up, peeling himself off of Lance, rolling over until he sat next to him. Casually, he sought out Lance’s hand, took it between both of his own and played with his fingers. They were clean of the blood they’d been coated in before, as were his clothes—a simple shirt and pants pulled from his room, definitely not what he’d been wearing before. A glance at Keith found him also in clean clothes, his hair and skin hastily scrubbed.

“I had to heal Shiro,” Lance offered, when Keith didn’t say anything else.

Keith raised his head. He still didn’t look at Lance; rather, Lance sat up and followed his line of sight to another occupied bed, the only other occupied bed in an otherwise empty room, a few paces down the row. In it, Shiro slept peacefully, and Adam sat at the edge of the bed, holding his hand, pushing his forelock back and cradling his cheek.

“Thank you,” Keith said quietly. “He…he did need you.”

“It was pretty bad,” Lance confirmed. “I-I’ve never seen anything like that—”

“No one has, but we’re gonna have to start looking into it,” Keith interrupted, turning to face Lance. “But that’s not what…never mind that right now, okay?” He finally ceased playing with Lance’s fingers, instead pulling his hand into his lap, clasped tightly. “You pushed yourself. Again. That’s almost two days in a row.”

“You just said—”

“You should’ve focused on him, never mind me.”

“Keith…”

The last dying rays of sunlight glittered in the windows across the room, bathing the infirmary in a red-orange glow, so different from the bright yellow it had been earlier that afternoon; they sparkled in the way they caught Keith’s eyes, and illuminated the scar on his cheek. Lance reached his free hand out to trace over it with his knuckles, his thumb. More than a year on, the scar was finally fading, though Lance knew it would never go away completely.

“I love you,” Lance said at last, pushing a lock of hair behind Keith’s ear, “but I’m sticking by what I said yesterday. If I can help, if I can _do something_ …I’m gonna do it. If it hurts me in the end…better me than anyone else.”

“Don’t _say that_.” Keith’s voice went down to a hoarse whisper, underlined with disbelief, maybe even a note of anger. Justified. “You…you self-sacrificial _asshole,_ what’s it gonna take to make you value _yourself_ as much as you value everyone else?”

Lance laughed. Lightly. Lowly. “Says the man who just told me not to worry about him.”

Keith’s mouth opened. Closed, when he couldn’t muster up a response.

“I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to put myself before anyone else,” Lance went on in that silent space, sliding his hand to the back of Keith’s neck, leaning forward and pressing their foreheads together. “Not in the way you want me to. And for that, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t…” Keith blew out a frustrated breath and dropped his gaze. “Don’t apologize. I’m…” He squeezed Lance’s hand. Drew in another shuddering breath, held it for a moment, and then let it go as his shoulders slumped. Then he raised his eyes again. “I’m just gonna have to keep showing you how important you are until you get it.”

Lance’s mouth twitched up. “I guess we’ve both got our work cut out for us, then.”

“Yeah, I guess we do. And…I’m sorry. About yesterday, and last night—”

“Don’t be. Just c’mere.”

His thumb rubbing tenderly along the back of Keith’s neck, Lance leaned in, and Keith met him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaa well i hope u enjoyed that!! i don't know what i'm posting next but if you're interested, consider subscribing to me :^)
> 
> if you'd like a commission of your own, read [this here tweet](https://twitter.com/astralscrivener/status/1206734106840772608) to find out how to get one!
> 
> also check out [darcy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/works), as well as her [klancemas zine](https://twitter.com/klancemas)!
> 
> and, as always:  
> [my fix-it fic (s4-8 rewrite)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900732/chapters/37059441) || [my other fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/works) || [nicole's fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeneevee/works) || [my twitter](https://twitter.com/astralscrivener) || [nicole's twitter](https://twitter.com/queen__eevee)


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